Exchange - ipad mail keeps crashing

My Mail app is also crashing when I open an attachment, specifically a PDF. It happens every time so it was not a Fluke.

I'm having the same problem 😟

I'm having the exact same problem.

The entire iPad becomes unstable and mostly unusable. Thought it was a hardware problem and had mine replaced. After the second one showed the same problems, I finally narrowed it down to the Exchange Email account (I have lots of email stored on the exchange server).

How can we report this to Apple..??

I just realized that my problem was not EXACTLY the same as what Adam posted because in my case, I'm not using a VPN connection. Nonetheless, widespread app crashes start very soon after I setup the Exchange account. Things will return to normal when I remove the Exchange email account from the iPad (BTW: The same Exchange email account works fine on the iPhone).

I hope this get resolved soon as it +*really limits*+ our ability to use the iPad as a work.

I also had the same problem. Mail crashing occurred on my iPad and iPhone at the same time. After resetting and restoring the iPhone the problem still persisted. Thinking it might be the Exchange server I put the phone into flight mode and it still crashed. I then went to my desktop and deleted some mail that I received about the time that I noticed the problem. This worked. I suspect a bounced mail notification from a government agency as the offending mail item. Now everything is back to normal on both the iPad and iPhone.

I had similar crashing problems on my iPhone 3GS and iPad. I have 4 email accounts, but only one of them was crashing my iPhone & iPad. The problem started when I sent out an email mailer to my customers (about 120 emails from my desktop computer). When I started getting responses and a bunch of Undeliverable Email Notifications, both my iPhone and iPad Mail app started crashing. Following some hints on this forum I was able to fix the problem. First I deleted the POP email account on my iPhone and iPad. I than logged into my web mail and deleted all the Return Receipts and Undeliverable Email Notifications, as well as anything I didn't want from the day I sent out the mailers. I than synced my iPhone and iPad with iTunes (selecting all my mail accounts in the "Sync Mail Accounts" box. Now all is well. I'm guessing some bug in the iPhone OS software since I had the same problem on both mu iPhone and iPad. Apple may have to look into this.

I have no such problem, and connecting to a very large Exchange account.
Completely believe it's happening to you ! - but there might be something else going on than 'just' large size or attachments.

Is your Exchange server running at least 2007 w SP1? Is it SP2? roll-ups?
Or are you on 2003?

Also, I assume this is using ActiveSync (versus Outlook Anywhere) directly.

I am not running Exchange over VPN; most corporate entities allow some form of exchange entrance from the outside (https, activesync, outlook anywhere, or imap or pop).

For the record, we are running Exchange 2007 SP2 with rollup 9, and utilizing ActiveSync and iPad and iPhone exchange email are working very well.

Cheers
dan

Same here, my mail app was working perfectly until.... i dont know yesterday i tried to start the app and then open and shuts after 3 seconds ????? Please help anybody

I have the same issue with no VPN. Everything worked fine for a day or two then almost no app will stay open for more than 2 minutes. I tried deleting the few 3rd party apps I had installed....numerous soft/hard reboots... Deleted half my 3k emails off the exchange server... Finally had to do a full restore. Today went fine then started again, same symptom. My fix this time was to delete the exchange email account off my iPad and BINGO the world was good again. This is definitely a bug related to exchange. While others say they have not seen it, they may soon. My worked fine for the first two days. I have the iPad 3G so perhaps that is more affected. I am using intermedia.net for my exchange hosting they appear to be fully patched and running on the latest release. I have not had this issue with my iPhone or laptop.

This needs a fix quickly.

Same problem with mine when I open a large PDF. It also reset or cleared out my inbox on the iPad

Update on what has worked for me so far as a "work around" (not a fix). I believe the issue I am having is related to how ActiveSync on the iPad is handling corrupt or bad messages (perhaps email, contact, calendar objects... not way to know). My laptop with Outlook handles these fine but we had another non-Apple mobile device and my iPad crash around the same time and the fix was to delete the Exchange account off the device. Both use ActiveSync.... I have created a folder (Reviewed) from my laptop (Outlook) where I move all my email after it downloads to Inbox and I have reviewed it. This 'Reviewed' folder does not sync with any mobile device (my iPad or iPhone) so I can't see them after they are moved. For now this allows me to see all my incoming email and possibly identify which items are causing the issue. If I have the problem again, I can hopefully go onto my laptop and move all the "Inbox" messages to "Reviewed" and then my iPad will not hang on ActiveSync attempting to handle that message. It's not perfect but my hope is it will help debug this issue (identify what types of objects are causing it, get a sample and provide to Apple).

Having similar problem with work exchange. Everything works fine with iPhone but using same settings on iPad 3g and I keep getting the error that the iPad cannot connect to exchange server. If anyone figures out whybthe iPad won't connect, let us know!!!! Very frustrating because I can't use this great device at work where I need it most to manage my calendar and emails.
Tom

Tom,
in most cases, iPad connects just fine. In any case, the issue you are having is different. I hate to state the obvious, but something must be different between your iPad and iPhone setup. Is your company using Exchange 2007? If you are using ActiveSync (vs. imap) and / or it's setup for Outlook anywhere, the ActiveSync client is the same. Are you using client certificates? SSL? I obviously don't know your environment, but if the iPad doesn't connect at all (double-check all addresses and names) there is a 'simple' setting issue (or the device has been disabled or disassociated from the server level, which can be done in ActiveSync...). The problem a few people are having here is with client crashes, apparently due to the mail app not handling a certain kind of 'malformed' (or even very large) message correctly.

Best
dan

Update. Well my "keep minimal mail" in my inbox approach didn't help nor did it help me identify what type of objects (email, contact, calendar) was causing the problem. I had <100 emails sync'd with my Exchange account and last night my iPad became as unstable as it has before, crashing in every single app within 10-60 seconds. I went to my laptop and moved all 100 emails out of my inbox (cleared it to zero) and the iPad sync'd that (zero emails) and still couldn't keep from crashing. I soft/hard reboot to try and clean out anything still around and no joy. I went in and deleted the Exchange email account off my iPad and immediately (without even rebooting) it was stable. So add Exchange account, works for 1-2 days.... begins crashing all apps.. delete Exchange account and issue is fixed. Again, Outlook has no issues with anything sent to me. I'm not even sure now it is related to any object I am being sent.... seems to just be Exchange and ActiveSync services.

It seems Exchange Email accounts last about 2 days for me then starts to crash all apps, regardless of how many emails (1600, 99, 54...). The immediate fix is to delete the account. I can then recreate it and I get another few days... I noticed that this thread has over 800+ views, FAR more than the next 50 posts. I assume from this that its a common problem and hopefully is getting the attention is deserves. Ipad for the enterprise is pretty much DOA if Exchange crashes it.